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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Kakao Talk, a popular mobile messenger in South Korea, is launching an online music and electronic book shop next year as it continues to grow beyond its original mission to provide a simple online messaging service.

Kakao CEO Sirgoo Lee said Tuesday the shop named "Kakao Page" will provide publishing tools for artists, writers, musicians and other creative types to sell and market their songs, music videos and electronic books to 66 million Kakao Talk users.

Its founder and chairman Brian Kim said Kakao also hopes to partner with U.S. companies such as Google and Facebook to reach U.S. smartphone users.

The three-year-old company has about half of its users in South Korea. Kakao joined with Yahoo! Japan last month to expand its service in Japan.